What is Cyber Security and Does it even Matter?

Cyber security. Cyber space. Cyber warfare. Cyber threats. Cyber attacks.

I'm sure some of those words sound familiar. In fact, unless you've been living under a rock for the entirety of the last decade I'm willing to bet you probably have heard of a Cyber-something at some point or another. I probably wouldn't be willing to spend my money any further than that however.

To be completely honest, unless you're a big fan of Revenge of the Nerds, most topics that delve deep into the technical aspects of computers probably confuse or bore you to death and I don't blame you. But if we're being serious, this stuff matters. In the world we live in, where technology is infused into your daily life and the activities you take for granted rely on their connectivity to the Internet, it matters a lot. Sometimes, even the biggest ROTN fans don't actually know anything about the topic of cyber security except what they'll be tested on in their senior-level college security class. Over the course of this blog, my aim is to bring up fresh and interesting topics in cyber security and present them to you in a meaningful way.

I will say, I'm not here to be a fear monger and warn you of impeding cyber doom that will lead to World War III, because, really, that type of talk is irrational. I really don't want to give you a lecture on password writing because that's boring, but that stuff is good to know and I will if I have too. What I really want to do is open up the discussion about cyber security and how it relates to our current, ever changing world. Whether you're a victim of nerd persecution or not, my hope is you'll learn something following this blog. 
So what does cyber security really mean? What cyber-anything really is about is information. That's all anything related to computers and the Internet ever is. To put it very simply, your Facebook application on your phone is just relaying public data to you in a user friendly, socially interactive way. The debit card you carry in your wallet is simply data that links to a bank account holding your money. The current events taking place in Syria being relayed through twitter, the temperature in your car being adjusted by an internal computer, or the satellites sending your local news channel weather updates is all information being processed, communicated, and acted on in different ways.

That information, information that is crucial to your daily life, is why cyber security matters. As technology continues to grow year after year, the threat of an attack that can take control of your car or steal all your banking information grows as well. As individual countries and the global economy rely on technology more and more, even foreign policy is directly affected by cyber security.

Imagine what you could do if you could control this information. This is what a cyber attack is doing. The impact cyber attacks can have, and therefore the impact of security as well, is wide and broad and encompasses many fields and industries. I put a few links through this post in the hopes of instigating discussion. If you chose to comment on this blog post, I want to hear what you think. Are you scared? Do you really even care? Are you a self-proclaimed expert or computer illiterate? What do you really know about cyber security? Take a look at this flipboard and see for yourself how many headlines there are about cyber security.